Monday Morning Mailbag Call: Yesterday’s Answers, Today

Which current Big Ten coach should be YOUR team’s next coach? A very pleasant good morning to you all. Iowa sits atop the Big Ten West, Indiana is ...

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Which current Big Ten coach should be YOUR team’s next coach?

A very pleasant good morning to you all. Iowa sits atop the Big Ten West, Indiana is an unstoppable jugglenaut, and, as such as the sun rises in the east, we never got you Mailbag answers for last week.

As your benevolent overlord, I have taken it upon myself to (1) answer ~~all~~ ~~most~~ some of your questions, and (2) request that you submit more in the comments.

Last Week’s Mailbag, Today

I have accepted that my team is bad, really bad. But I do not recall experiencing

denial, anger, bargaining, nor depression. Is this healthy? Did I miss out on the whole grief experience? —theguyfrommy-wega

It’s probably healthy, to begin with. I remember Northwestern’s two-year 5-7 slide in 2013-14, and I was not in a good place for those seasons. (I was also about 23-24 years old, but hey, let’s glide right past that.)

We were having this conversation in a game thread on Saturday night—there’s something about having a child in there (or any healthy coping mechanism, which I suppose could just be 25 Miller Lites as long as you’re not driving or anything) that really takes the edge off that grief experience.

What’s likely leading to this numbness you’re experiencing, though, is how rapidly wisconsin’s collapse has come. It’s hilarious, and yet it’s almost stunning in how quickly Luke Fickell’s arrogance has cratered this whole bit.

Or I dunno, whatever, maybe you went through it Jack Donaghy-style:

Is THIS the off-season Mike Locksley is finally relieved of his duties, or is a $13.5M buy-out too costly for UMd’s practically non-existent pocketbook? I’d love for him to become an off-field Football CEO like Andrew Luck, but I don’t think he could be talked into it. For some reason, he thinks he can actually coach, not just recruit. —BadPseudonym

He’s on the hook through what, 2027? If Locks could get one of these two seasons to a point where his contract was winding down and he could make it to a bowl game, that would be an ideal point to announce he was retiring and moving into an administrative role.

Will he do that? As you note, college football coaches are goddamn arrogant lunatics. Despite Locksley’s coaching being a net zero-to-negative, I’d bet he thinks he can still turn it around or add something—would a coaching up-and-comer want, though, to deal with Locks in the GM role and questioning their decisions?

Given the contract situation, if I’m the Maryland AD, that buyout’s dropping if I’m going to keep Locksley on board at all beyond 2027.

UCLA signing this staff before the end of the season or will there be a lot of poaching? —JayMPSU

It’s probably UCLA’s turn to do a Clay Helton kind of thing. I guess I wouldn’t hate it. But they’ll need a GM who’s halfway decent.

(I realized how long it takes to answer all these. Jesus.)

Will Indiana’s success under Cignetti coupled with the portal and NIL making it possible to completely rebuild a team immediately cause schools to have less tolerance for anything but immediate success? —BoilerBehindEnemyLines

First, how “behind enemy lines” are you? Do you live in Bloomington or South Bend or something? I really wouldn’t have assumed that anywhere in Indiana—maybe actually save being an IU grad in West Lafayette—would be “behind enemy lines” enough.

Second, probably for the biggest and bestest among us. But I think the Purdues, Northwesterns, and Marylands of the world are rational enough to understand their place in all this. Hell, Minnesota has been accepting it for something like a decade now. All that nonsense, and all they’ve got is an Outback Bowl to show for it.

Pat Fitzgerald’s won a goddamn Citrus Bowl.

why are people having more than 1 kid? do they just forget how awful it was the first time?? —glassjawed

I think the only people more annoying than people who bitch about having kids are the ones who like to lecture them on how they should have fewer. r/childfree is a cesspool.

Will Michigan State negotiate down the Johnathan Smith buyout? —Greenie711

Boy, this question looks even bleaker now, doesn’t it.

Should Nebraska fans get Blackshirts since they’re better at getting defensive than the football team? —WhiteSpeedReceiver

See the above answers. I do love when these questions age nicely.

Are the top 3 teams in the country all in the B1G? Are the next best 3 teams in the country all in the SEC? —CJB

If I were ranking them today, which I guess I am, because I’ve started my sentence and there’s no possible way to turn this ship around…

Ohio State
Indiana
Texas A&M
Alabama
Oregon
Georgia

So the answer to your question would be “No.”

When will those responsible for the sacking be sacked??? —Exiled_In_VT

Read an interesting article about Vermont the other day: a farm in Norwich that was supposed to be a partnership with some farmers, a land trust, and the Vermont Technical College. Shockingly, it’s gone poorly.

Will the Gophers lose a home game? Will the Gophers win a road game?

Does [REGIONAL BANK] Stadium provide a proper homefield advantage? —TheDuluthPerspective

Add-on bonus: For being so self-proclaimed smart, why da fuck is jNW still playing in Wrigley? —cericjo

Do we count Wrigley Field as a road game? Because it will not feel like one—that game’s purpose is to get All The Money of opposing fans, because it is a novelty for those teams and an albatross for Northwestern football, which is now 0-fer Wrigley games.

So by the strictest legal definition: yes, Minnesota will win a road game. They will not lose a home game (Michigan State and wisconsin). In tandem with the general uninterestingness of Golden Gopher football in the Fleck Regime, [REGIONAL BANK] Stadium does exactly what it’s supposed to do, which is bore you into having conversations with your neighbors about what a lovely fall day it is. My parents, season ticket-holders, seem to have a lovely time.

What are your top halloween cocktails, and makes them Halloween? Color: like greens and purples? Taste: Apple, pumpkin, Malort (i.e. scary and yes, I said it)? Glassware: Zombie tiki? Garnish: Dry ice, glow cube, plastic eyeballs? —chitownhawkeye

I asked this question recently and got unsatisfactory answers.

I think there’s room for Malort for scaring the faint of heart, of course. But the more time I’ve had to think about it, the more I dig the idea of absinthe being a central part of this. Something with a nice green to it. Perhaps straight absinthe with a glow cube in it and a little whiff of dry ice on the top.

I’ve completely lost the Halloween plot, haven’t I?

Tell you what:

Take one of those small, decorative, but very-real pumpkins. Hollow it out.
Fill with absinthe.
Add a glow cube and some dry ice.
Turn off all the lights.
Get drunk in the dark.

Which presently-employed Big Ten head coaches not named Matt Rhule are most likely to partake in the offseason (head) coaching carousel?

and, as a bit of a follow-up…

What would the ‘writers’ reaction be if Brian Kelly left Livvy Dunne University to take over at wisconsin? —ziowa

In order:

Mark Mangino
Hawkeye Samm
Some other beaten-to-death picture, I don’t know

I hope this has been helpful.

Will PSU pay 175M in total buyouts and salary to hire a guy that is even worse at winning the big game? —Slowhand422

Nah. I’m a pass on Rhule. But you probably give Eli Drinkwitz or Clark Lea a call, right? (Even if the optics of hiring another Vandy coach are, well, y’know.)

I’m not creative enough to be an NFL assistant- or Next Big OC/DC-knower. Here are my other ideas:

Jeff Brohm (Lhvl)
Yep, started the list with Jeff Brohm, that’s how blank a canvas this is
Brent Key (GA Tech)
I guess Manny Diaz (Duke)

There’s also the option to buy high on someone like Alex Golesh at USF or even Eric Morris at UNT, if the latter can bring his DC and QB. Or maybe you call the dude at Memphis?

Thing is, if you’re Clark Lea or Brent Key, would you leave your alma mater for a jump up but a risk? I get why—these people are, again, clinically fucking insane—but look at Jonathan Smith, going from Oregon State to Michigan State. Do you really want that to be your legacy? If I’m Lea or Key, I content myself being Pat Fitzgerald—minus the whole “definitely, according to the latest in legal settlements [/winks], definitely knew nothing about what was going on in his program, of course—and commit to going 7-5ish in the bad years while raising the floor of my program and being beloved at my institution for as long as I want.

Your school has just fired the head coach. Who, from existing Big 10 Coaches and the ones who have been fired this year, do you pick to be your head coach? They must be a “cultural fit”. Exp. I don’t see Ryan Day fitting in at USC. —Buckeyes2014

Of course not. Ryan Day is Ohio personified. A deeply fake black beard, likely plans in place for a sports bar in Columbus, and probably a political career as a U.S. Senator, 2034-2040.

However, if I were to shuffle every Big Ten coach to another team, here is what I would do: